Sony: Piracy is a big concern and the reason we can't do business in Philippines

A Sony executive has stated that the widespread piracy in the Philippines is forcing many companies to abandon any plans for manufacturing software in the region. He went on to say that this is the sole reason why Sony would not even consider importing PSP videogames into the Philippines. However, he did admit that it is difficult to quantify how much the industry loses in relation to the PSP and stated that it is very difficult to quantify.

"Piracy is the big concern and this is the reason why we cant do business here," said Hiroaki Kobayashi, president and managing director of Sony Philippines.

"I think its also the problem of other companies," he said, citing the widespread availability of pirated versions of movies, audio products, video-games and computer software.

He said this was why Sony would not even import copies of video-games for their popular Playstation Portable (PSP) into the Philippines.

Kobayashi said he could not say just how much the industry lost to piracy saying: "Its very difficult to quantify."

Bullcrap.

Sony don't do business in philipines because it's not a rentable business, it's simple. Here, in Brasil, we have a LOT of piracy and Microsoft released the Xbox 360. She believed in the market. But Sony won't release that crappy PS3 here "because of the piracy". I say, again, BULLCRAP!

That's a load of bull, how can they isolate the Philippines as the reason they can't sell in the region? I've seen these stands and i admit, they're like mushrooms growing out of every nook and cranny. But what they fail to realize is that the source of these is not the Philippines but China and the surrounding nations in SE Asia.

A large fault could be attributed to the illegal Chinese merchants who've set up their business in the country and are importing the goods from the mainland. Most of these are sold by Muslim vendors who have no idea or not even aware of the concept of piracy, as long as it sells, they don't care.

Sony just won't admit that they're losing on the whole electronics market in the country. They sell their TV's, Stereos, etc... at insanely high prices and are out of reach to the average Filipino.

Its big in India and China, but companies set up shop their aswell. During a trip I took last year the Psone and Sega Genesis were the big things that a majority of people owned when it came to consoles. The only problem was 95% of PS1 games in India were pirated so they would not run. A majority of Genesis games were those X in 1 titles which ran perfectly. Looking back on it, I think I shoulda picked up some genesis games

my country (venezuela) do the same $#@!. they have stands with burned cd's and burned games and burned umd's. like 50 cents for each and stands like in the mall they install modchips on anything for like 50 USD. im willing to move over there since the police dont care but there are a lot better reasons to live in america...

my country (venezuela) do the same $#@!. they have stands with burned cd's and burned games and burned umd's. like 50 cents for each and stands like in the mall they install modchips on anything for like 50 USD. im willing to move over there since the police dont care but there are a lot better reasons to live in america...